2009 Socorro Chile Harvest Triathlon Race Report

I did a triathlon this past Sunday, but before I can give my race report, I need to report out on the Socorro Chile Harvest Tri that I did 7 weeks ago on August 1st.

This was the first triathlon I did this year. It was a big day seeing as how I hadn’t trained for it in any kind of capacity (read: I didn’t train at all). A couple conversations with some friends revealed that I’d be lucky to do as well as I had done last year (which if you ask me wasn’t all that great, but I digress).

I will say this though, I made some great strides in terms of the diabetes realm, the not getting injured realm, and the being faster than last year realm. There were some big strides.

The Swim
The swim is always the biggest challenge for me because I want to sprint. The problem with that is I get through 50m and then proceed to die. Well, not really die…but I die. As I did today, after my first 50m, then I couldn’t breathe and it killed the rest of my race. I know better than to do that…but oh well, I swam faster than last year (400m in 13:16)

T1
I came out of the water feeling great and I tippy toed ran to my transition area to see that my blood sugar was great (98), eat a GU, wash it down with some power aid, get my bike gear on, and get out of there. I also shaved time off from last years time. (2:58)

Bike
The bike was rough, but still good. I was out of breath for a long time and it took me a while to get my breathing under control. The hills bothered me a bit, but I think it’s mostly because I was going up hill with a head wind (not my most favorite scenario). But it was still a strong ride, well, it could’ve been stronger had I been training, but I didn’t train so I can’t fix this years performance, but I can fix next years performance. But, happily, I did do better than last year. And, even more exciting, is how I did better despite me stopping to hook a guy up with a patch kit and air. I’d pass him as he was fixing his tire, and then he’d pass me and we went through this several times so I finally stopped to help him. Only one bad thing happened to me on the bike ride and that’s where about 6 miles into it I discovered that I wasn’t wearing my pump. I freaked a little but kept going.

I have to say the most exciting thing about my bike ride was the dismount (which I tried to find a vid for that showed what I did, but alas, I couldn’t. If any of my triathlon peeps (ahem: Outlaws) know of a vid can you please let me know). So, here’s what I did. The most exciting thing ever seeing as how I’d never done it before.

I took my feet out of my shoes about a 200m before the transition area, and pedaled with my feets on top of them, and then when it was all said and done, and it was time for me to get off my bike, I ran in my socks. I think this saved me time in my 2nd transition, it was completely awesome. (20k in 51:15)

T2
It turns out that T2 this year wasn’t much faster than last year, only about 4 seconds faster, I think it’s cause I ate up time with trying to get my insulin pump back on and give myself insulin for my rising blood sugar that was in the mid 200s. (2:02)

Run
My run can’t really be called a run because I barely ran it, except at the end where I sprint because that’s what I do. I didn’t want to injure my knee, because last year on this tri I came out of the water with my knee hurting and by the end of the run it was swollen and bruised and this year so far I wasn’t hurting so I didn’t want to injure myself so I mostly walked. My mostly walking was apparently slower than last year. Oh, well, by a minute, LOL…it was the slowest piece of this tri. I had a special treat on this run because Brian came out and ran it with me (well, poor guy, he walked it with me) cause he needed the extra mileage. (42:30)

Overall
The biggest goof up of this race was me forgetting to put my pump on when I came out of the pool. That being the worst thing isn’t as bad as it could’ve been. I was really insanely happy about this race seeing as how I didn’t train for it one bit. I can’t wait to do it again next year and see how much I can improve. (total time: 1:51:58.5)